Scripting News for 2/5/2008

Paul Ding: “You don’t have to change the oil in your car. You can always replace the engine instead. Works the same way with health care.”

Great essay on the cost heath care.

Been here before

Allfacebook: “Last night the MySpace platform went live. This follows the launch of Bebo and Google will begin providing support to OpenSocial developers.”

I’ve had a long career in an industry with incredibly short cycles. I’ve been to this place before.

As O’Neill says above, platform wars are raging, this time the front line is in social networking. 20 years ago the front was in basic networking protocols, before that software to operate laser printers. What always happens is a low-tech winner emerges, a consensus platform, usually not from the biggest company.

Guidelines: Simplicity rules. You’ll know it when you see it.

Until then, I’m going to keep doing what I’ve been doing.

It would be great if someone developed a network address book with a simple API that everyone could build on. An event system built on it. Either fully distributed or hosted by a company we trust. That’s what we’re waiting for.